MVP Lowell will leave ... fingerprints on Series title

DENVER -- Best scene in the house late Sunday night as Boston was celebrating its second World Series title in four years was right where principal owner John Henry was standing in the infield, with manager Terry Francona walking and a few thousand fans in the seats chanting.

As Henry was taking it all in, holding a victory cigar the size of Dustin Pedroia's bat, Francona walked by and leaned in.

Please don't leave us, Mike! Red Sox players and coaches certainly want Lowell to return in 2008. (AP)

"John, do you have a match?" Francona asked, waving his own thick cigar. "You try to light that thing!"

It was almost impossible to hear over the din of the fans.

"What's that they're saying?" Henry asked someone close by, attempting to decipher the raucous chant.

"Re-sign Lowell!" the guy told Henry, and the owner with the power to do just that threw back his head and laughed.

Moments later, it got even more entertaining. The chant changed to a loud and definitive, "Don't sign A-Rod! Don't sign A-Rod!"

The love affair with third baseman Mike Lowell was in full bloom. He had just been named World Series MVP, batting .400 with a homer and four RBI, and he seemed to be involved in almost every key defensive play as well.

The fans were swooning for the third baseman who is eligible for free agency this winter, and the feeling was mutual.

This is Lowell's second World Series ring. He also won one with the 2003 Florida Marlins. But this one, he said, was different. Then, things were going so quickly, and that Marlins team was middling around .500 two months into the season and it was as if the players didn't know what hit them until after the lightning bolt was gone.

Now, he had succeeded in slowing things down and soaking things in -- to a degree -- and he was reveling in a championship for a part of the country that is known as baseball heaven.

"It feels like you have all of New England on your back, in a good way," Lowell said. "You want to do well for that whole part of the country. Look at this here, there are, like, 15,000 people still here. They haven't left yet.

"This following is something I wasn't accustomed to in Florida. I was telling Pedroia and the younger guys, 'You don't know how spoiled you are. Come to Florida and play Pittsburgh on a Tuesday night when it's raining.'"